Applied English Phonology, Second Edition ( PDFDrive )

PHONETICS 11
the point at which the voicing starts with respect to the moment of release. In
line (c), the vocal cord vibration is simultaneous with the stop release; the VOT
is zero and we have a ‘voiceless unaspirated stop’. The voiceless stops of Romance
languages are given as examples for this.
In line (d) the lag is longer than the 30 ms threshold, and the resulting sound
is a ‘voiceless aspirated stop’. The diacritic used for aspiration is a small raised
[ h ] to the top right of the stop (e.g. [p h ]). English initial [p h , t h , k h ] sounds are
produced in this way and we hear the resulting short burst before the buzz of
voicing in the vowel. The degree of aspiration may be different in different
languages. For example, while English voiceless stops are slightly aspirated,
their counterparts in languages such as Mandarin, Thai, and Scots Gaelic are
strongly aspirated.
In some languages (e.g. Hindi of India, Sindhi of Pakistan and India), the
possibilities go beyond the three types of stops (voiced, voiceless unaspirated,
voiceless aspirated) we have discussed, with the addition of the so-called ‘voiced
aspirated stops’. These stops have, after the release of the stop closure, a period
of breathy voice (murmur) before the regular voicing starts for the following
segment. Thus we get the following four-way voicing distinction in Hindi:
[tal] “beat”; [t h al] “plate”; [dal] “lentil”; [d h al] “knife”
1.3.6 Vowels and diphthongs
When we examined consonants, we talked about the varying degrees of
obstruction of the airflow in their production. As a general statement, we
can say that the vocal tract is more open in vowels than in consonants. This,
however, can be a tentative formulation, because as we saw in the discussion
of glide/vowel separation, the consideration may be phonological and not
phonetic.
For the characterization of vowels, we do not use the dimensions of place
and manner of articulation, as there is no contact between the articulators. Instead,
vowels are characterized by the position of the tongue and the lips. Since
vowels are usually voiced, the voiced/voiceless distinction used for consonants
is not relevant either.
If you examine the vowels of beat, bit, bait, bet, and bat in the order given,
you will notice that your mouth opens gradually and the body of your tongue
lowers gradually. A similar situation is observed if we go through the vowels
of boot, book, boat, and bought; that is, gradual opening of the mouth and
gradual lowering of the tongue. The difference between the two sets lies in the
part of the tongue involved. While in the former set the front part of the tongue
is involved (tongue pushed forward), the latter set focuses on the back of the
tongue (tongue pulled back). The traditional type of chart used to plot vowel
positions places the front vowels on the left, back vowels on the right, and
central vowels in the middle. There are height dimensions: ‘high’ (or ‘close’),
‘mid’, and ‘low’ (or ‘open’), while the ‘mid’ is frequently divided into ‘high-mid’
and ‘low-mid’. Figure 1.6 shows the English vowels.